OSBC - Open Source Business Conference
Four Open Source Startups Named “Ones to Watch” at Recent Open Source Business Conference
Successful event completed; Dates announced for 2005 Boston event and 2006 San Francisco event
San Francisco, CA—April 14, 2005—Open Source Business Conference™ completed a successful event on April 5-6, 2005 in San Francisco and named four emerging Open Source companies as “Ones to Watch.” OSBC™, the premier event for Open Source software and business, also announced its expansion with a new Fall 2005 East Coast version of the event in Boston. The Boston event is scheduled to take place November 1-2, 2005 at the Boston Marriott Newton. OSBC also announced dates for the 2006 event in San Francisco, scheduled to take place February 14-15, 2006 at the Argent Hotel.
The four emerging Open Sources startup companies selected as "Ones to Watch" at last week's event include:
- BitTorrent (www.bittorrent.com)
- Groundwork Open Source Solutions (www.groundworkopensource.com)
- Realm Systems (www.realmsys.com)
- SugarCRM (www.sugarcrm.com)
"These companies were selected based on their respective positions on the Open Source adoption curve," said Bryce Roberts, OSBC. "We anticipate that each of them will hit a key inflection point in terms of customer adoption, competitive pressure and business model refinement this year. It's an exciting time for them and now we will all be watching.”
The “OSBC Startup Showcase” provided an unparalleled coming out party for the industry’s most promising Open Source startups. 25 startups were selected from an estimated pool of 150+ potential Open Source startups, and these companies were on display. Last year 20 startups participated in this track and most have since received funding. In many instances, the connection between startup and venture capital was made at OSBC.
Keynotes and conference sessions at OSBC were well received. Sun Microsystems, Inc. president and COO Jonathan Schwartz discussed how Open Source and open standards are creating truly free markets for software, thereby lowering costs for IT buyers and expanding market opportunities for IT vendors. IBM’s Irving Wladawsky-Berger expressed his belief that innovation will drive new opportunities in Open Source business for IBM. Jane Gilson of Microsoft described how the world’s largest software vendor is adapting to an industry turned upside down by Open Source.
“We were very pleased with this year’s event which continues to grow,” said Warwick Davies, group vice president, OSBC. “There was a tremendous amount of education about the business impact of Open Source, and attendees also expressed that there were many excellent networking opportunities at OSBC.”
For more information about OSBC, please visit www.osbc.com.
About OSBC
The Open Source Business Conference™ is the only event that provides an educational forum for business leaders (both IT buyers and vendors), lawyers and venture capitalists focusing on the opportunities and challenges that open source technology presents. Attend this exceptional conference program led by well known thought leaders and industry executives and become part of the event where important issues are discussed and the future will be determined.
About GroundWork Open Source Solutions
GroundWork Open Source Solutions, Inc. (www.groundworkopensource.com) develops, integrates and enhances leading open source software to deliver comprehensive open source IT monitoring solutions. With GroundWork solutions, enterprises leverage the flexibility and low cost of open source tools to achieve enterprise-level availability, performance and operational efficiency at a fraction of the cost of commercial software. GroundWork is based in Emeryville, Calif. and its investors include Mayfield and Canaan Partners.
